History is about life. It's awful when the life is squeezed out of it and there's no flavor left, no uncertainties, no horsing around. It always disturbed me how many biographers never gave their subjects a chance to eat. You can tell a lot about people by how they eat, what they eat, and what kind of table manners they have.

Spotting talent is one of the essential elements of great leadership.

The preparations were elaborate and mammoth in scale, and Washington threw himself into the effort, demanding that not an hour be lost.

Housetops were covered with 'gazers'; all wharves that offered a view were jammed with people ... As British officers happily reminded one another, it was the largest fleet ever seen in American waters. In fact it was the largest expeditionary force of the 18th century, the largest, most powerful force ever sent forth by Britain or any other nation.

You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history.

To write is to think, and to write well is to think well.

First of all, you can make the argument that there's no such thing as the past. Nobody lived in the past.